The Prime Minister was not announced for this meeting in front of a hundred people who came on registration in a room of the Watteau theater, in the presence of the deputy for the constituency, close to Gérald Darmanin, and the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, and supervised by a substantial safety device.

The strike against the pension reform and the postponement of the legal age to 64 promises to be very popular on Thursday, particularly in education and transport, despite the government's efforts to defend its project and its calls to avoid blockages .

"We do not undertake a pension reform lightly. I am perfectly aware that this is a very delicate, very sensitive subject, which inevitably raises many questions for all French people", declared Ms. Borne on her arrival.

"We have had at heart, in all the discussions that we have been able to lead with the trade unions, the employers' organizations and all the parliamentary groups, to have a project of justice and a project of progress", "bearer of social progress “, she continued.

In response to the first intervention from the room, the head of government assured that the starting age of 55 for the disabled would remain unchanged.

"Weren't there other ways to make it less brutal for us?" Then asked an employee, forced to work "one more year" with the reform project.

In response, Ms. Borne said she was "determined" to "change the way companies look at seniors", judging "extremely shocking that we rather have large groups which permanently have voluntary departure plans in which, finally, we make the seniors leave," she said.

A retired Paris firefighter asked 'why it was not possible' to include 'other sources of funding' to bring the system back into balance than postponing the legal age and the acceleration of the Touraine reform "to achieve a broader consensus and create a nation".

"We have a course which is not to increase the cost of labor", replied the Prime Minister, however highlighting "1.7 billion rebalancing" by "an increase in employer contributions", offset by a reduction in contributions in the industrial accidents and occupational diseases branch.

“The employer pays nothing, he only retains the value produced by his collaborator,” retorted a member of the audience.

An air traffic controller and "Walker of the first hour" said he did not understand why asking certain employees "to contribute 44 years, when after 43 years, I think they have done the job".

Since the government will "probably have to make concessions", "it would seem to me that this is the happiest one can take", he said.

“In the project, no one will have to work over 44 years old,” replied Ms. Borne.

But "we have never had such a protective system for people who started working early" than with this reform, she argued.

"These people who started working early, or even very early, tomorrow will be able to leave at least two years before the legal age and up to six years before the legal age", against "at best three years before the legal age "under the current rules," she said.

© 2023 AFP